bring may death with the flowers
by painted.inkblot
Summary: That month isn't right, and because of 1998, it never will be. // May and the memories, emotions, and regrets that come with it. Series of oneshots.
1. may 1st

i. May 1st should be a good day, or at least a normal one. But it's not and it never is and it is, Dean thinks, the waste of a perfectly innocent day. It reminds Dean of how he was with watercolor when he first began to use it: a certain color was meant to be in only one place, but nearly every time, at least a bit of it would escape and drip down to a part of the painting-in-progress where it was most definitely not supposed to be. Even after Dean dabbed at it and dried it up, you could still see the where the paint had been.

Every May 1st, a day relatively innocent as far as days close to the Battle could go, the sorrow and memories and feelings of the second would drip down to then, and many people would walk around, their posture already stooped and their faces already downcast.

It's like something extra is in the air; something foreboding, something that never fails to set Dean on the edge. It's a day which, years ago, several people were still alive for and aren't alive for anymore and something about that is even worse than the next day where they actually die.

As Dean became more adept at watercolor, the paint didn't drip into places it wasn't meant to. The first is not a watercolor painting, and it continues to get drenched with feelings that belong in a different place.

ii. Sometimes, Ernie Macmillan supposes he shouldn't be angry with himself for taking certain things for granted. After all, for the whole school year of '97-'98, he did not take much for granted, such as his health (the Carrows enjoyed dishing out severe punishments), his family (they were outside Hogwarts and could be caught in the middle of an attack; at least at school the Carrows wouldn't go so far as killing because what was it other than an easy escape?), and his future (it wasn't the first time Ernie had a bit of doubt in Harry Potter—the bloke was just his own age, and he was going up against an evil man with years of experience, if he even got that far).

But past the pomposity and the fussiness and other such flaws, Ernie was a Hufflepuff through and through, and he refused to make excuses for himself. A good example of honesty: Ernie Macmillan took Justin Finch-Fletchley for granted.

A good example of truth, something that goes hand-in-hand with honesty: Justin Finch-Fletchley was killed in the Battle of Hogwarts.

Ernie tries not to think of Justin during the rest of the year. That is the past, and here is the now, and thoughts of someone who has been dead interferes with the now and the to-come; rule number forty-seven in What Not to Do During a Conversation: Bring up a dead friend.

But as April fades, Ernie's mind wanders, as May (also known as The Month When Ernie is Allowed to Let Go) dawns. He wonders (Rule Number Fifteen in How to Deal With Life: Do not think of things that will not ever happen), sometimes, how May 1st would have been if he knew Justin would die a day later. Not well, he thinks in the back of his mind; he would probably go about thinking up an orderly schedule of what to do to make the best of Justin's last day living, which might have made it even worse than it was.

May 2nd is a list of losses, but May 1st is worse; May 1st is a list of regrets.

iii. May 1st, summarized in a neat and tidy little sentence: Another day in a world where Daphne Greengrass would be fine as long as she did what Voldemort and his Death Eaters wanted, because she was a Slytherin and a pureblood.

Daphne does not begin her mourning a day early; the first was an ending and an ending to a world like that one does not deserve mourning.

iv. Whenever Draco Malfoy wakes up at exactly six-fifteen in the morning, like always, on the first of May, he is never sure as the memories begin to return in full force whether to be grateful for, angry, or sad with what happened.

He gets out of bed; he stands up straight with perfect posture; as he dresses, he puts a handkerchief in his pocket just in case but makes sure he never needs to use it. Malfoys do not cry, either with joy or with sadness. May is no exception.

v. May 1st, 1998 is the last full day of Mandy Brocklehurst's eighteen and a quarter-year life; she is just one in a sea of graves.

* * *

So this is a series of oneshots--four oneshots--about May. I figure May, for the UK witches and wizards involved in any way in the Battle of Hogwarts, is a pretty crappy time of year, filled with all sorts of memories and regrets and loss. The next three focus on May 2nd (the day of the Battle of Hogwarts, according to JKR), May 3rd, and May 31st.

This'll be finished, unlike just about all of my other chaptered fics, because they're all written already. xD I suppose I'll post the next three over the course of the next couple of weeks or so.


	2. may 2nd

i. Every year, on the second of May, the first thing Parvati Patil thinks when she steps outside is _The weather is lovely._

Parvati loves the warmth. Her earliest memories are of heat, vague keepsakes of her life in India before her family moved to Birmingham as a small, small girl. The memories of the heat let her continue to loathe the cold and rain of England, and even more of Scotland, even though she's felt the patter of English rain under her umbrella far more than the Indian sun burning her cheeks.

There is never a drop of rain, Scottish or English, on May 2nd. Never too hot, never too cold. Coats off, bare arms, no sunburns. It is the weather Parvati always longs for, and it is the weather Parvati always hates every time May 2nd dawns. Her hands instinctively fly to her disfigured face and stroke her scars; she thinks of the dormmate who died; the yearmates she never bothered to know and would never able to know now; she wonders why the world is so cheerful about it.

Parvati would at least like some goose pimples, some hint of coldness, some hint of sorrow in some sort of biting air, something to reflect the actual feelings of everyone who was there.

(Maybe if it was a different situation, she would think how ironic it is that she'd want the typical Scottish weather and not this too-perfect idyll, but nothing can turn May 2nd into anything humorous. Nothing.)

ii. Daphne tuts. "That was a most tactless thing to say, Theo. How very un-Slytherin."

Theo glares at her. He hates how on this day, every year, her way of speaking is that of utmost formality, not a drop of slang in her language, her posture stiff and her jaw clenched, as if any hint of relaxation or loss of some sort of focus will make her lose her composure entirely.

Of course, she actually might. It is so much harder to read people any more. Some say adults are so very predictable, but Theo disagrees.

"Daphne's right, you know," says Blaise behind his teacup (a teacup that is actually full of coffee, but who is Theo to judge Blaise's preferences?). "If someone else heard you, especially today, well—"

"I know," says Theo, staring at his tea. "But it's true."

Tracey rolls her eyes; Blaise sips his coffee; Daphne stares into a space above his head, and Theo wonders what she's seeing that no one else can, what memories are replaying in her head.

"Of course it's _true_," Pansy says. "We may have been perfectly happy with ourselves and everyone else in Slytherin, but the other houses weren't happy with us. Of course it's true that throughout the year people began to wholeheartedly believe in the worst of Slytherin because we made no effort to dispel their beliefs and those beliefs, judging by Voldemort and his Death Eaters and my stupidity that day, were quite sensible. Of course it's true that after the battle, after we brought in the reinforcements, that those beliefs began to turn around because they realized what being a Slytherin really is. Of course it's true that if the battle had never happened no one would have arrived at those realizations. But, oh, fucking Merlin, Theo…"

"There would have been more losses if we hadn't brought in the reinforcements," Theo mutters. "So the battle was a turning point, even if the losses were needed for it, even if—"

Tracey puts her cup down on the table; it is completely silent and the small clatter is far louder than it would have been. Blaise swallows and fingers his bright polka-dotted bowtie. (Who am I to judge Blaise's preferences, Theo reminds himself.) "How very cold, Theo," she says, the ghost of a smirk dancing around her mouth. "How very Slytherin."

"Slytherins are not automatically cold," Theo murmurs. "Slytherins are normal people who happen to be Slytherins. People like to assume evil people are cold. Slytherins were not originally cold; they only can be if that is the person they are. Slytherins are not evil."

No one says anything. No one sips tea or coffee. No one meets each other's eyes.

"The weather is lovely today, isn't it," Daphne whispers. It is not a question. It is not an attempt to make conversation.

"Isn't it," Daphne repeats.

The drinks begin to go cold.

iii. Anthony Goldstein always wears a coat on May 2nd. The weather is always unbearably lovely, but throughout the day an unending shiver is going up his spine and goose pimples surface on his arms. After the memorial service at Hogwarts is over, he pulls his coat closer to his body and watches people put flowers at the graves of best friends, lovers, and family, their eyes unseeing through the film of unshed tears. Daffodils, daisies, roses, carnations, black-eyed Susans, chrysanthemums, delphiniums—all sorts of pretty flowers are laid in front of graves. Anthony himself carries no flowers to put at the base of any graves; he's always thought it unbearably cruel that people do such things. What would the dead people think, knowing that their death is just an excuse to show off something beautiful and alive?

He watches a pink-haired boy walk over to a threesome of graves, followed by a middle-aged, elegant woman. The woman is unafraid to cry; she does not hold back or dab at her eyes with a handkerchief; she lets the tears roll down her cheeks, still somehow looking stoic. The pink-haired boy puts a letter each at two of the graves; the woman lays down a single fanged geranium at the remaining one, which Anthony thinks is a somewhat odd choice. He watches the boy sit down cross-legged and stare at the graves for at least fifteen minutes, while the woman takes deep, slow breaths. In, out, in, out.

Anthony stares at the sky—a pretty, sunny blue; it's funny in a depressing way how the second is always the first and sometimes only lovely day, but that it might as well be cold and dreary with how everyone, including himself, acts—and wonders for a moment if perhaps he's misunderstand the concept of leaving something at someone's grave.

(The woman continues her breathing. In, out, in, out. Inhale, exhale, continue to live, everything will be fine.)

iv. Zacharias Smith does not set foot outside the house May 2nd. Perhaps it would be more honest, more Hufflepuff, to go to the Hogwarts memorial service and mourn and not fear those who will turn to him and say, "You didn't fight, did you? You weren't there. You don't understand. You never will."

But he will take the coward's way out, as he has been doing since May 2nd, 1998; he will stare at the wall of his bedroom in his flat and think of the friends he could have saved, the people he could have stopped, the loyalty he could have shown.

He will ignore the sunny day outside his window, turn the temperature down low, and he will try to make the same excuses he does every year. Thin excuses, weak excuses, excuses that fall through after one small prod or doubt.

"I was loyal," Zacharias will say to himself, his voice hollow, as he stares at a picture of him and Susan waving (she waves with a perfectly fine and healthy arm, he never fails to notice) from the Hufflepuff common room. "I was loyal to myself. I was honest to what I wanted. I was a Hufflepuff. Just in a different way. A different way."

He closes his eyes and keeps them closed. Black and yellow images dance around in his mind, people who are so disappointed they just look at him.

"A different fucking way."

Zacharias opens his eyes again to escape the images in his mind.

May 2nd brings about everything that is wrong with Zacharias Smith, everything that he refuses to acknowledge and doesn't want to acknowledge and wishes he didn't need to acknowledge.

It's so pretty outside, he thinks. Bright blue sky and fresh flowers and everything. He wonders what it would be like to step outside.

They're always only wonderings.

v. Harry always tries to think about what was right with May 2nd—about the people that were stopped and the lives that were saved and the future that was saved and the present that is the result. Don't think about the graves. Don't think about the friends. Don't think about the loss.

But not even the Savior of the Wizarding World can do that.

* * *

I totally had something to say, but I forgot. Oh, well.

This one is probably my favorite.


	3. may 3rd

i. Seamus remembers nothing about May 2nd; it's nothing but a blur of shouts and spells and blood. He walks around in a daze, looking for a place to sleep, and once he finds one in the Gryffindor tower he goes to sleep immediately, too overwhelmed to stay awake and think about what was lost.

Then he wakes up May 3rd and for a second or so he breathes and looks around and _he's alive_, even if at the cost of a hand, and then he looks around more and Dean, who is sitting there on one of the old Gryffindor beds, looks him right in the eye and says in a voice utterly devoid of feeling, "You're going to the funerals, aren't you?"

And then he begins to cry.

Of course every year on the second he goes to the Hogwarts memorial service; every year on the second is a somber day for him as well, but the third is always a day where Seamus can barely meet anyone in the eye because horrifying battles are all well and good (or rather, sad), but the _realization_ of what happened after one will always be what brings to Seamus to tears.

ii. Susan Bones isn't sure the battle really hit her until the day after. The remainder of May 2nd, after the battle, was spent crying with friends because they were alive and they had won and a glorious future was ahead of them now. Of course she saw the bodies and the injuries, but she saw and thought nothing more than that; no recognition that that mangled corpse was Justin and that he wasn't going to wake up; no recognition that Blaise Zabini's loss of an arm was permanent.

The third dawns and suddenly Susan is digging graves, digging graves for people that are well and truly gone. They were not going to get up and live and be fine again. Her eye wasn't going to come back to its socket; her twisted and crippled arm was going to stay useless (at around this time Susan realizes she probably shouldn't be digging graves, as it takes her a much longer time than the others). After the graves and the funerals, she spends the rest of the day staring at her two arms: one healthy, though a bit too bony and scarred, and the other a mangled, crippled thing that if it weren't attached to her Susan wouldn't be able to recognize. She stares and stares and never cries and as the sun goes down, Hannah gently leads her inside.

iii. _I'm just deaf_, Morag MacDougal thinks May 2nd, only a few hours after it's happened. _It's alright. I'm alive. I just can't hear. I'll be fine._

On May 3rd, the silence is overwhelming, and Morag wonders if the fact that she's alive is a positive thing.

iv. Gregory Goyle was not quite as stupid as people thought he was, but it didn't take a brilliant mind to do what was required of him the past seven years; why bother trying to be anything more? He had grown up knowing his purpose in life and it didn't matter if he failed a class or five. It didn't matter if people hated him.

On May 2nd all that matters is that the only friend he had is dead and he only survives the battle because of the sheer amount of curses and hexes he shouts, lashing out at anyone near him. Eventually he is hit by a Stunner and falls off a flight of stairs, getting a concussion. No one finds Goyle after the battle ends, but he stays hidden after he comes to the next day and overhears what passersby say: Voldemort is dead, Slytherins brought in reinforcements, all escaped Death Eaters are being looked for.

Vincent is dead. His purpose is gone; now he would be imprisoned for it. Slytherins may be celebrated for bringing in reinforcements, but he wasn't that kind of Slytherin; he was the one people thought they all were.

He aims his wand at himself.

v. After the battle, May 2nd is a blur of tears and memories and _oh Merlin_s and anger. Nothing stands out; everything goes by so fast.

George wants the same the next day; sharpness and clarity and facing what happened just the next day is too much to bear. Every moment without Fred will stretch into a century, the absence of a voice to finish his sentences and a brother who is—_was—_much more than a mere sibling standing out in George's mind far too much.

Awareness is too painful. George heads down to his old friends the house-elves, who think nothing of making a few Firewhiskeys for an old, grieving friend.

* * *

The only one I really like in this part is George's. =/ Oh well. Next chapter is the last one; it's really short, though.

Okay, and as for the bit in the Goyle's part about Slytherins bringing in reinforcements--

That's canon. In the seventh book, after Harry 'dies' and is brought back to Hogwarts and stuff happens (I know, I'm so specific), it mentions that Charlie Weasley had overtaken Slughorn and blah blah, and that they had returned with family and friends and whatever.

Charlie Weasley wasn't there in the beginning; he couldn't have returned. Slughorn is one person and not a they. The only people who could have returned were the Slytherins who were of age. And I'm not guessing; I did actually read an interview a month ago where JKR said the they were the Slytherins, that she thought it was obvious it was the Slytherins but forgot to point it out.

So, uh, yeah.


	4. may 31st

The whole of May, it's as if Lavender is permanently on edge, a little Lavender-controller switch flicked "on." In conversation, she will easily admit she's just a bit superstitious, a bit paranoid, in a primitive sort of way, and she is cloaked in those feelings (feelings that come a bit more naturally ever since Greyback—it is either a curse or a blessing in disguise and Lavender is never able to decide which) all month. Lavender's not sure how any witch or wizard of the UK, really, can feel perfectly fine during a month that is completely composed of cemetery visits and memories and regrets and pain.

She wakes up June 1st every year with the refreshing feeling of relief practically pouring over her, washing out all the ugly emotions and events of May. It's not right, that month—because of 1998, it never will be.

* * *

I said it would be short. =P

I didn't think the concept would be able to stretch for four more people.

If I ever get around to writing it, I have a oneshot coming up which is basically the opposite of this one, where Ron bitches Anthony Goldstein out about being so depressed about May (because the way I write Anthony Goldstein, he tends to come out needlessly depressed. I'm not sure why).


End file.
